


The Predatory Color Blue Is Out To Get Us

by Garlicbreadbowl



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Secret Relationship, The first four are general but more specific tags are in the individual chapter summaries
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25433353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Garlicbreadbowl/pseuds/Garlicbreadbowl
Summary: Chapter 1: A late-night rendezvous with Preston goes wrong when they're walked in on by his boss/father-figure.Chapter 2: A vacation in Nahant with Preston goes wrong when he gets lost in his head.Chapter 3: Boswel stops by twice, both times ending in appliance destruction. But, maybe the guy isn't so bad.
Relationships: Arthur Maxson/Preston Garvey, Preston Garvey & Sole Survivor, Preston Garvey/Arthur Maxson
Comments: 5
Kudos: 4





	1. The Devil Wears Blue

**Author's Note:**

> I know this is a bit lower of quality compared to my other fics (specifically MHAMFIHI) but that's because I wasn't really focused on quality and just. Wanted to write this. Prexson is frikkin good yo
> 
> sorry for any grammar mistakes, I beta-read and rewrite but something I miss /-/
> 
> ALSO: Be Assertive by Munchy is what Preston references, bc I love that relationship origin story.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tags
> 
> Fluff  
> Mentions of Sex  
> Implied Sex  
> Implied homophobia, racism, transphobia  
> Being Walked In On  
> Secret Relationship  
> My ss boy likes blue

_Tap, tap tap_

He watched the clock, every vein feeling pulled taught across his body. 

_Tap, tap, tap, tap_

The minute-hand clicked forward, and he was so, _so close_ to that magic number he’s been dreaming of for the last two weeks, since Boswel offered him another joint-settlement and tour of it. 

_Taptaptaptaptap_

He had never been a fidgeter, but right now, the rhythmicity of bouncing his fingers against the windowsill was all that kept him from pulling his hair out in anticipation. Or maybe nerves. He couldn’t tell. 

His breath hitched as the hand ticked yet again. Four more minutes. Just a mere four minutes, and he can safely escape the confines of this room and traverse the town to rendezvous with the colonel. 

Colonel Garvey.

Preston. 

_Ugh,_ the way his mouth twitched, briefly flashed a smile, makes his stomach turn. 

But it’s also frightfully thrilling.

Preston, Preston, Preston. He sank into his crossed arms, dreamy, too enamoured with even the name of the man to be frustratedly stiff. 

The clock ticks. Three minutes. 

They’d been nursing this odd relationship in secret, for a little less than six months. Of course, their more... _sordid_ affairs were another two months before the six of _actual_ relationship. Frankly, he had no idea how the hell it happened. He knew how the _physical_ aspect kicked off, but remembering it made him want to hide his head under a pillow and scream.

It didn’t matter. Two minutes. 

He slightly raised himself from his seat, fully prepared to sprint the moment 8:35 hit. Preston had pulled him aside at the Prydwen last meeting, told him that the route to the room he’d be in would be clear of guards at that exact fateful time. He winked, and followed behind his general. 

Leaving Arthur with a glint in his eyes that made everyone look at him weird.

One. Minute. 

He jumped out the chair, at the door in precious seconds, hand gripped around the handle. 

Soon. 

Arthur watched the minute hand tick down, counting each second with an unwavering suspense.

Ten seconds. Nine, eight, seven, six, _five, four, three, two-_

He carefully slipped out the door, wary of making noise and attracting patrols. 

~

The cool night air of Taffington sang as it raced alongside the windstorm. Thick cumulus clouds blanketed the sky in rosy-indigo tufts. Lights, strung from cables and across buildings, illuminated the streets in a warm glow, bathed the earth in flitting shadows as the busy nightlife harried through the town. 

With how bustling Taffington was, even after sun-down, Arthur didn’t worry about being stopped. If any of his own soldiers spotted him, he’d disappear into the crowd before they could catch up and interrupt his march to Preston’s bunk room. 

Sneaking into said bunkhouse would prove challenging, even if the path was clear of guards. A Minutemen army base had more Minutemen than Preston. Best case scenario, no one notices. More likely scenario, someone does and asks, and he lies and says that he needs to talk to the Colonel about relations.

Well, that wouldn’t _really_ be a lie, now _would it?_ _  
  
_

Arthur shoved the worst case scenario into the back of his mind, dodging and jockeying around the stampede of ever-busy settlers. Was this how the Minutemen grew so quickly? By not ending work with the day, keeping night shifts of unending progress?

He tried to ignore the uneasiness that came with that train of thought. 

The Minuteman banners, waving tall in the air, lit up with blue spotlights, peeked out over the crowd. Arthur had seen the small base, in the northern part of Taffington, as the Vertibird landed atop it. It was a thick, concrete bulwark, armed to the teeth to keep out Mutants from Malden. Even if the town had been wiped of hostiles, there was no keeping them from coming back. D*mned abominations were worse than radroaches. 

He doubted the armed guards would notice him sleeping from the top of the bulwark. They’d be staring out into the wasteland, keeping an eye out for greenskins. 

The large steel double-doors, like the grand entrance to a mighty fortress, were propped open slightly. Smoke wafted from the interior.

He slinked past the doors, into the threshold. The main entry room was an armory, close by so as to quickly prepare the settlers in case of attack. Walls were lined with gun racks, shelves stacked with armor sets. Power Armor suits stood at the ready to the eastern wall.

Pillars of smoke rose from the bushes of flame, birthed from the interior of a T-51. A sergeant yelled at a red-faced younger man with a hideous radroach tattoo on his arm as others sprayed the suit with extinguisher, more able mechanics rushing to ready themselves for quick repairs and stabilization.

Arthur skulked in the shadows, trying to pick out words from the muddle of angry CO’s barking orders, engineers shouting instructions and stats, the clanging of tools being frantically put to work, and the bubbly hiss of fire extinguishers. 

A weathered woman in a mechanic’s suit approached the sergeant, sparing the man who was probably his age from further berating. Out from the chaos, Arthur picked out some of the conversation. 

“...rewired all power to the...won’t blow, and I doubt the fire’ll get bad. If we just…”

Satisfied with and trusting the mechanic’s evaluation of the scene, he hurried through the darkened end of the hall, making a bee-line for the hallway that had a ‘Bunks’ sign above it. They were distracted, but even in chaos, it’s not that hard to miss an unidentified individual sneaking around. 

~

The hall housed many doors, all labeled. Barracks 1, Barracks 2, Mess Hall, Private Armory - most of which were currently inhabited by Minutemen soldiers. Preston had said that guards patrolling the bulwark had a quick meeting at 8:35, leaving the halls empty for more than long enough. 

It was unlike any fortress or base he’d seen from the Brotherhood. Their camps were dark, enforced steel, intimidating. The Minutemen seemed more...homely. It made sense, coming from a militia, but you’d think that they’d become more militarized after growing so quickly. 

The echoes of laughter and clinking of glass filled the hallway as Arthur tread through the concrete bulwark. The soldiers were likely celebrating the benefits of allying with the Brotherhood - Power Armor, rare technology and materials, more supplies.

Of course, his own army was likely doing the same back home. The Minutemen were a goldmine of opportunities. Mass amounts of clean water, fresh produce, extra hands, and salvage were hard to come by - or turn down.

Even if the guy offering it was less than easy to get along with. 

  
Arthur huffed, pulling his coat’s collar up.

Boswel was frustrating. You hated him or loved him, but could never deny that he got things done - even things thought impossible. Arthur would forever hate the Institute and Boswel’s involvement, but the older man had done a bang-up job using its resources for better. His soldiers definitely weren’t complaining about the pounds of fresh, radiation-free produce.

He passed by another hallway, only to stop in his tracks and backtrack.

The small hallway was an offshoot of the main one, housing only a single door. Above this door hung a bright neon blue sign that read ‘Colonel’s Quarters’.

A wave of giddiness crashed through him as he stepped forward and knocked softly at the door. 

There was a squeak of a chair against concrete, and footsteps practically jogging towards the door. 

Immediately, it was thrown open, Preston grinning upon seeing him. Before Arthur could say anything, the other man seized him by the collar of his suit and pulled him forward into a kiss, dragging him inside the room and kicking the door shut. He chuckled quietly against Preston’s mouth, a stream of something timeless and unfamiliar running through his veins. 

They broke apart, Preston wrapping his arms around him in a tight, warm vice, leaning into him, resting his head on his shoulder. “Hey, babe.” He said with a soft breath, making Arthur's heart flutter, tilting back and kissing at the bags under his eyes. 

“Colonel Garvey.” Arthur purred, cheeks flushing under the man’s attention, the chill of the night breeze melting in his paramour’s embrace. 

It was probably how he fell so hard and so quickly, Preston’s warm demeanor. Everything in the Brotherhood was cold steel, doubly so when you’re the Elder. He didn’t know if it was the same for every Elder, or just him, but...people didn’t touch him. When they did, _always_ and _only_ for medical reasons, they did so like he’d explode at them, like they were afraid of him and of disrespecting him.

The last person to hug him was Sarah. Well - last before Preston, anyway. 

Preston was all dark hair and cozy eyes and warm skin, heating you up just by looking at him. Sunny smiles and soft voice. It’s so easy to fall for someone when the sight of them makes you melt into a puddle. 

Arthur’s eyes slid shut, leaning into the slightly-older man, burying his face in his shoulder. Even the smell of him was warm - something spicy, like cinnamon, lay under the smell of leather, laser smoke, and something strangely fruity. He knew what they were, because he’d spent an embarrassing amount of time with his nose in the hoodie Preston had discretely given him. 

He may or may not have used it for a pillow case. 

Preston hummed contentedly, rubbing at Arthur’s back in soothing circles, just enjoying his very shape, like all he wanted from him was his presence.

Arthur sighed, feeling all the tensions and weight of responsibilities shedding from his shoulders like a mask, a steely expression he didn’t need here. He would put it back on when he left, but in that small room, in his lover’s arms, there was no stress, no being pulled tightly in every direction. It made him feel childish, how it reminded him of younger days when he wanted to be a writer, but Preston was like a bed; heavy woolen comforters, soft pillows to hide your face in - a safe place, one without worry or exhaustion. Respite.

Not even his own bedroom was like that - his quarters were where he drank to slip into dark dreamlessness on the nights he let himself, or finished paperwork without Cade coming to check on him and telling him to go to sleep. His room was little more than another office, with the added bonus of vodka. 

He only really slept in Preston’s presence. Everywhere else was just comatose, a way to pass time and pretend he was ready for the next day. But in Preston’s arm’s, rest came easy, like he earned it, and deserved that respite. 

He didn’t think he did. He told Preston as much, once - the man lovingly berated him for the rest of the night, until he fell asleep on the other man’s chest, feeling safe and, more importantly, _seen._ For the first time in his life, he had felt _known_.

Never did he think this would happen. He planned on dying an untouchable force, a man highly respected, but never _loved_ . Never actually _cared_ for - a face, a voice, a commanding officer. Not a person, not a young man, not even human. He didn’t even dare to dream of being any of those things, to anyone. Much less dream of being loved as them. 

Preston had different plans, clearly. “How went the stealth mission?” He teased, nosing at Arthur’s cheekbone. 

He smiled, soft and fond, against the other man’s forehead, pressing a kiss to it. “Mission successful. A Power Armor suit catching fire in the armory proved to be an effective distraction.”

Preston paused in his attack of peppering kisses across his face. He pulled back, solicitous. “Hell do you mean, _‘catching fire?’”_

“I believe one of your mechanics made a slight error during a tune-up.”

He scoffed slightly, before he took Arthur’s hands and led him to a small alcove-table in the corner by a window, overlooking the river. The room was modest, as was everything with Preston, holding only a bed, the alcove, and a small hardly-a-kitchen area that could produce a cup of coffee and instant ramen, but not much else. Preston plopped down on the bench of the alcove, a map of Taffington, littered with notes and sketches of development concepts, forgotten in the midst of his company. "I'm gonna go on a limb and assume that it was a younger guy with a radroach tattoo."

Arthur quirked his brow. He leaned in, taking Preston's hand in his, wanting to be close to him. "Is this not the first time such has happened?"

_"No."_ Came the sharp abrupt spat.

The amount of exasperation, and sheerness of it, drew the ever-elusive laugh from Arthur; it was a weird, growly bark that was uneven and course, once compared to a Yao Gui choking. It wasn't his fault; how could he have a normal laugh when he hardly got the practice? 

"It isn't funny, this guy has destroyed four suits in two months because he hates the head engineer too much to listen to her. And that's just _suits_ . Don't even _ask_ about his work on _turrets."_ Preston squinted in mock-ire, even as his eyes lit up at his lover's radstag-vomiting - another comparison, people _hated_ his laugh - and started to rub at the webbing between Arthur's thumb and index. The first time he did, he said that doing so helped headaches, having watched Arthur palm at his eye sockets far too often. 

He winced sympathetically, well versed in the f*ckery of idiotic recruits just as he was with throbbing pains in his head. "I know the feeling. A Vertibird went missing in Fort strong, and the Knights guarding the hanger are claiming a Mirelurk Queen stole it."

It was Preston's turn to snort. "A Queen? That was their best excuse they could come up with?" 

"What's more worrying is that everyone stationed there is backing them up."

"Wait, what?" 

"Every soldier stationed at Strong claims the Queen came from the ocean, took the Vertibird from the open garage door in her pinsers, and left with it. Even the higher-ups."

Preston hummed, the 'yeah, figures' hanging the air between them. "So, difficult recruits aside, how have _you_ been?"

A question that hung heavy. 

He could tell him the truth - but that would soil the mood. So, Arthur settled for a current truth.

"Better, now that I'm with you."

It was a special kind of delight, watching Preston gag exaggeratedly at his usual waxing poetic. Arthur was by no means good at interpersonal relationships - but he read a lot, back when he had the time. And in those thick books, the man was a gentleman, sweet and romantic, said things that made the girl blush and fall in love. He did things like kissing her hand, bringing her bouquets and chocolates, holding open doors and taking her coat for her.

Those books were the only teachers he had, the only way he could see a world outside the one he was born into. When he was in the curious years, ones where his peers were finding _their_ first loves, he'd daydream about having a love like in his novels, a person to be that gentleman towards.

He stopped daydreaming quickly. It's more painful to wish for something than it is to abandon it.

Ever since Preston first said 'I love you', he found himself wishing he could go back in time, and tell that little boy to keep dreaming. 

" _God,_ you sound like the dudes in the cr*ppy novels my mom reads," Preston groaned, unaware of just how much joy that brought him, how much that _meant._

A smile bloomed on Arthur's face, fondness and lethargy spurring him to lean forward still, softly press his lips against Preston's. 

The other man leaned closer as well, pushing at his chest until he was practically in his lap, straddling him. 

The door flung open. “Hey, Pres, brought you hot choc-” A sizzling splash hit the floor.

Arthur’s heart stopped, both lovebirds jumping. Preston lurched away to the other side of the cushioned bench as he blushed, sucking in a breath through gritted teeth. From the corner of his eye, General Jesse Boswel’s dropped jaw and drinks made the idea of throwing himself from the window and into the river rather palatable. 

“Oh.” Boswel squeaked, so expressive that Arthur could see his eyes darting between the two of them without turning his head. 

Oh dear god. 

Oh, no, no, no, no nonono. 

This was the worst scenario. This was the nightmare scenario. This was the very thing he did not want to happen. 

He was tactful, quick-witted, barely broke a sweat under pressure, but in that moment, his mind blanked completely, save for a perpetual stream of _‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH’._

Preston, clearly braver than he, sheepishly glanced in Boswel’s direction. “Heeyyyyy…” He grit out, pointing a pathetic pair of finger-guns at the man, as if that would somehow make this more casual and not the very definition of pain. 

“Heeeyyyyy.” Boswel parroted, hesitantly waggling his own finger-guns, and _wow_ the alcove was _really_ interesting, very well-made, truly fine craftsmanship, why would Arthur look at anything else when _such a nice alcove_ existed?

“So, uh...what did you need?” Preston croaked, unblinking as he shrunk into himself. 

Boswel paused, staring at the splatter and empty cup on the floor. He opened his mouth, but after a moment, shut it, silently looking into the puddle as if it had answers.

_Such_ a nice alcove! Exquisite alcove, _really._ You could work _and_ watch the river! Who made this alcove-table-thing? Arthur would be sure to give them his regards. Such a nice alcove-table-thing. The f*ck was this alcove-table-thing? What _word_ is that? He used to _write_ words, d*mnit. 

"Well, g'night!"

Boswel turned and ran out into the hallway. 

Preston sat still as stone beside him, and just as silent. 

Arthur turned to him. 

_Yes,_ his secret relationship was just discovered by his boyfriend’s basically-dad. 

_Yes,_ that was his worst nightmare.  
_Yes,_ he was forever traumatized.

But alas...

“So, should I take my leave, or are you still up for…?”

Preston’s gaze slowly met his, in wide-eyed disbelief. 

...he was still a twenty-year-old who came here to do _that_ word, but with _present tense._

~

Arthur awoke slowly, the way he always did in Preston’s bed. Warm sheets, soft pillows, living heater wrapped around his back, trailing kisses across the nape of his neck. He shuddered, skin sensitive, as Preston laced their fingers together. 

“Hey there, sleepyhead,” The other man murmured against his neck, voice rough from sleep and their - ahem - _activities_ the previous night. 

Arthur turned and reached back to pull Preston forward for a proper good-morning kiss, melting at the glow of his brown eyes in the early day sunli-

The door was kicked open. “Morning, Pres! Brought you- _JOSEPH, MARY, JESUS, AND THE REST OF THEM,_ **_HE’S STILL HERE?!”_ **

Moment? Ruined. 

Boswel’s plate of food he brought for Preston? Almost dropped.

Morning wood?

_Chopped_. 

“Get out!” Preston exclaimed, gobsmacked that his boss’s first instinct _wasn’t to leave immediately._

_“Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry sorry!”_ Boswel chanted, covering his eyes with his arms as he hustled to the kitchen counter and left the plate on it. He turned on his heel, sprinting out the door. “We’re talking about this later!” He shouted behind him from the hallway. 

Preston groaned, flopping back onto the bed and palming at his face.

He had to ask. “Are we actually going to have to discuss…” Arthur gestured at the two of them. “Us?” 

“Yes.”

“Well. _F*ck.”_ Arthur ran his hand through his hair, not awake enough to be horrified at being walked in on, and too worried about the inevitable ‘meeting your boyfriend’s dad’ to be worried about anything else. “What did he mean by ‘later’?”

“Probably when we were all _supposed_ to talk about _business_ this evening?” Preston sighed roughly, still hiding in his palms. He peeked out from his fingers, glancing quizzically at Arthur. “You’re taking this rather well.”

“Eh, this sort of thing happens all the time.”

“Yeah, maybe, but you froze like a possum last night. How are you cooler with being seen naked than caught kissing?

“A vast minority of the Brotherhood has seen me naked at some point or another, so I’m accustomed to it.”

The Minuteman’s hands flew from his face as he sat up with eyes blown open, brows furrowed. “I beg your d*mn pardon?”

“There are no secrets, and by extension, _no privacy,_ in the Brotherhood.”

“I thought I took your?-” Arthur raised and flexed his right hand, snorting at Preston’s pause of confusion, sudden realization, and then bemused distaste. “Ah, I get it; you’ve never heard of locks.”  
  


“Someone picked it once and I never bothered again.”

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

“No.”  
  
“All of your problems are starting to make a lot more sense.”

~

He spent all day psyching himself up for it, and Boswel’s office was hardly intimidating. 

The books he read always had a scary father, glowering at his daughter’s boyfriend and brandishing firearms. Her house was filled with guns and military medals to show that her father could and _would_ kill a man. That was how it was supposed to be, how he’d known it for a decade.

Boswel’s office, assuming they were sticking with the ‘scary dad’ narrative, was an ambush, a false pretense to lull Arthur into a sense of security. 

He had a picture of him, his son, and a dark-haired man _Arthur swore to god was Danse_ on the desk, next to a #1 Dad mug. The office looked like Picasso circa 1901-1904 vomited all over the walls and furniture - did Boswel agree to lead the Minutemen just because their flag was blue? Why was everything blue? Even the desk chairs were blue. The computer was blue. And not a dark, mysterious or regal blue, a soft, powder blue. 

Arthur remembered reading a book on color theory in literature and sociology, that said blue was often used to express sadness.

What the _f*ck_ was Boswel’s problem? 

Said man sat across from them - ‘them’ being Arthur and Preston - twirling a blue pen in his fingers. His clothes were blue - blue button up, blue slacks. Arthur tried to ignore the bead of sweat daring to show itself on his brow. 

“So. About 8:57 last night to 9:23 this morning.” He started. 

“Look, I know what you’re thinking, I-” Preston blurted, having sat in the momentary silence picking frantically at his nails, only to be stopped by Boswel raising his palm.

“If you think I’m angry or something, I’m really not.” He said gently, with laughter bubbling along his voice. “Confused and surprised? No question. But you’re both grown men - you can canoodle whoever you so desire, provided it is safe and consensual. All I ask is to be filled in - how did this happen? When? How long has it been happening? Why did no one tell me?!” Boswel adjured, not the scary dad, but the supportive, if not a bit nosy, mother. 

Actually, yeah. As Arthur thought about it, Boswel fit the mother-bill far better. 

Preston visibly relaxed, shoulders falling and nails spared from assault. “Oh, thank god. Uh, we sort of, um…” He looked at Arthur, silently asking how much he was comfortable with Boswel knowing. 

Arthur took that as a sign that, perhaps, maybe he should use this as a bridge, a way to repair the rocky truce he had with the Minutemen General. He cleared his throat. “Preston and I met rather... _spontaneously,_ about eight months ago. I’m not sure how this came to be eith-”  
  


_“Eight months?”_ Boswel interjected, pen falling to the blue carpet with a clatter. 

Arthur swallowed. “Eight months.”

“Eight months.” The older man echoed, suddenly no longer speaking to either of them. “Eight months.”

Arthur glanced at Preston, only to find his lover just as perplexed as he. He cleared his throat. “Eight months.”

“You’ve been together eight months.”

“Please stop saying ‘eight months’.” Preston pleaded, voice strained like he was about to explode. 

“And no one told me?”

“No.”

Boswel stood from his chair so sharply and suddenly that he nearly made Arthur fall out of his. He marched to a blue cabinet, opened a blue drawer, and pulled out a blue bottle and three blue tumblers.

Arthur felt like vomiting into the blue trashcan, fitted with a blue bag. 

God he missed orange. 

Boswel swiftly poured what smelled like bourbon into the glasses, and slid the other two over the desk to his second in command and his increasingly-more-disturbed boyfriend.

“Go on, fill me in. How did you two get together?” He asked excitedly before taking a generous sip of bourbon.

Bourbon that smelled suspiciously like…  
  
Arthur took a sip. 

_...blueberries._

His heart was in palpitations. 

“We got in a fistfight and I kicked his a**, and I guess he liked it.” Preston said casually, causing both men to choke on their alcohol. Arthur stared at him, horrified at the mere mention of that wet nightmare.

Boswel’s eyes were wide at Arthur, a knowing glint in them that only added salt to the wound. He winked, flashing a finger-gun. “Alright, going better than how Piper ended up with Ellie.” Leaning forward a bit, he whispered, “Nick tells me they met at a Children of Atom rally. Didn’t sound pleasant.” He took another sip from his glass, “Anyway, how in the Lord’s name have you been keeping low this long? Does anyone else know?”  
  


“Likely the entire Brotherhood.” Arthur said with a dry tone. “Every time someone says Garvey, someone looks at me. It’s like Marco Polo.”

Boswel snorted into the bourbon, booze splashing against his burn-scar-littered face. “I can imagine. Haven’t heard anything amongst ours, so you had to be taking tours somewhere.” He grinned lopsidedly, crossing his arms on the desk. Preston rubbed at the back of his head, glancing away. The general tapped at his chin, “I do have to admit, I’m curious who the boytoy is here.”  
  


Preston choked on his own spit beside him, pain warping his face as he cringed. 

Arthur?

He froze.

_He_ was the boytoy.

This was well established from day one. 

“You’re the older one, and you seem too stable as an adult to be a boytoy. But Maxson has a beard, so...well, I guess boytoys can be bearded.”  
  


“Why are you curious about this?” Preston squeaked, the one to suffer from awkwardness for once. 

Boswel traced the rim of his glass. “I hate to think that you’re giving him any power over you whatsoever. Someone has to take this Jack Powel motherf*cker down a peg, and you are in closest proximity to do so.”  
  


The colonel tilted his head. “Jack Powel?”

“It’s a movie, I’ll explain later. Moving on,” Boswel leaned back into his chair, crossing on leg over the other. “Have you gone on a date yet? A proper one?”

Preston fidgeted, fiddling with the hem of his scarf. “Not a traditional one, no, but that’s hardly necessar-”

“Onaanvaardbaar!” Boswel declared in a language Arthur had no idea how to identify. He slid back in the desk chair, going through files of a drawer. The man pulled out a - you guessed it - blue envelope and paper, writing in chicken-scratch on the latter before slipping it in the hell-envelope. “Here. It’s a permission slip that’ll get you a week in Croup Manor for free. Nahant is absolutely lovely since we fixed up Libertalia, and you’ll have plenty of privacy.”

Arthur cautiously took the envelope from Boswel’s hand, dreading to touch the blue like it was plague. “And you want _what,_ exactly, in return?”

“Don’t get eaten by crabs? Crabs are a slight problem in Nahant sometimes.”

“No, there’s a catch to this.” Arthur bit, holding up the envelope stiffly. “I apologize if I come off as ungrateful, but surely you can understand why I might be incredulous to the idea that you’re just- _okay_ with this.”

“Arthur, _don’t.”_ Preston whispered at his side, worry clear as day in his eyes. 

Boswel raised a brow. “Actually, I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Off the top of my head,” Arthur counted on his fingers, “The Danse Dilemma, our vastly different philosophies, the fact that we nearly _went to war_ a handful of times-”

The general cut him off. “Υιός, if you think I’m one to hold grudges, you’ve yourself the wrong man,” He chuckled, “To tell you the truth, I think this will be good for the both of you. You especially.”

Huh?

Arthur blinked, caught off guard. _‘You especially.’_ The f*ck does that mean? Was Boswel psychoanalyzing him like he, according to reports, did with everyone? 

“So, we’re cool?” Preston asked, shoulders squared with tensions, offering a fist-bump.

Boswel smiled, returning the gesture with a mock-explosion. “Cool as ice. Now get out of my office, that Reedson jacka** ruined another T-suit and I need at least two hours of meditations to not stab him with my pen.” He shooed them away as the younger men went for the door. 

Out in the hallway, Arthur asked tensely, “Did that go well?”

“Went fantastic. I was expecting him to be more...overbearing, I guess.”

Arthur nodded as they walked side-by-side out of the bulwark and into the main entry, open doors filling the room with the sun that had yet to fall behind the horizon, lighting up the mess from last night was still being cleaned - fusion fires were a pain in the a**. 

The team of custodians were too occupied scrubbing furiously at black scorch marks coating everything in a ten-foot radius to notice them, cursing the person at fault’s name loudly. 

“We are going to have to, eventually, not be secretive about this, right?”

Preston nodded, fingers brushing against his. “Even if we tried to keep this on the down-low, I live with a reporter, a spy, a detective, and a courser. Someone’s gonna figure out.”

Arthur scoffed softly, dreading the reactions from Preston’s friend group. Needless to say, it would not end well. “At least it’ll be easier to tell them than the Brotherhood. I was supposed to have a wife two years ago.” He frowned, the bitter truth that wracked him with guilt and only-sometimes shame finding its way up his throat. “That’s not even considering the fact that I have to tell them that the Maxson line ends here. We’re generally accepting of LGBT individuals - West Coast chapters excluded - but…”

“...But you.”

“Pardon?”

“You’re the only one who has to be straight and have kids.”

“...yeah.”

It tore him the f*ck apart.

He was the last Maxson, not just because there were no more carrying his name, but because he _would be the last_. As much as he liked kids, he didn’t want any himself. 

To be honest, he worried more for _Preston_. As long as he had some interest or women, or at least an apathy to gender or body, his chapter would mostly be okay with his attraction to men. But Preston? Him, dating a black, gay trans man? 

He loathed to think of the reactions. Especially because everyone _loved_ Garvey. _Everyone_. But, because Preston was his lover, and not a white woman with child-bearing hips…

Sometimes the thought that, maybe, he should end this for Preston’s safety, reared its head, and he was assaulted by another wave of guilt, another reason to drink until the world went black. 

Happiness and peace was not the right of Elders. It was a privilege, one he could not have by reason of his blood. Forged by steel, after all.

  
He hated PDA.

But in that moment, demon horns peeking out from the alleys of Taffington, and with Preston so close, he reached for the other man’s hand, lacing their fingers. 

Preston looked at him, brows furrowed in worry, asking silently ‘You okay?’.

He didn’t look back, staring at the earth trying to pretend that if he didn’t see the world, it wouldn’t be there.


	2. Monsters want to crowd my room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter tags:
> 
> Suicide Mentions  
> Mentions of Sex  
> Mentions of Alcoholism  
> Mental Illness  
> Angst  
> Brief mention of Abuse but it's neither of them  
> Arthur's gotten over the Danse thing at this point  
> Regretting your life
> 
> General Sad times.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen very carefully.
> 
> EVERYTHING. IN THIS CHAPTER. IS SYMBOLISM. This symbolism will be more apparent and explained in the next chapter, but everything that's mentioned by name, like books, songs, the title of this chapter (which is from Monsters Talk by John Mark McMillan), I spent at least two hours finding for the perfect symbolism. I do this because I am a perfectionist and obsessed with H I D D E N M E A N I N G S. 
> 
> Also, I listened to The Last Great American Dynasty by Taylor Swift writing this, so it should vaguely have that feel
> 
> Anyway, here ya go

“You. Will. Be. _ Fine. _ Know what  _ my  _ first date was? He took me to his mother, who was a doctor, and had her examine me to see if I was ‘ideal for child-bearing’. If I made that sh*t work, you can handle a beach vacay with your lovey of nine months.” 

Arthur, any other time, would have asked Monti if she was serious. 

But at that moment, with the Vertibird closing in on Nahant, the only thing that went around in his mind was ‘Holy mother of f*ck’.

The stars had aligned, giving Arthur and Preston two weeks of no work above simple paper jockeying and reports - work that was easily handed off to trusted officers; which meant that it was the perfect time to make use of that blue envelope Boswel passed to him four weeks ago. 

Which meant his first actual date. 

That blue envelope in his pocket was reminiscent of a bomb vest.

He’d spent that morning dry-heaving into a bucket, Montgomery rubbing his back and calling him a more useless gay than she was. 

Said she-devil snapped her fingers at him. 

“Blow up the d*mn tracks, that train is going nowhere but hell. I can see it in your eyes that you’re freaking out. It’ll be fun! You never get to have fun!” She exclaimed, punching him lightly in the shoulders. “Besides, if you lose your cool, I’ll be in the hotel down the road, and you buy some wine and blubber on my lap.”

He winced. “We made a strict verbal agreement to never mention  _ that  _ again.”   
  
“We also made a verbal agreement that you’d enjoy yourself.” 

  
The  _ 'that'  _ was about three or four months into his and Preston’s relationship. A rather emotionally-charged  _ meeting _ left Arthur with his head in the clouds, stomach in a pit, and heart in a death-grip vice of barbed wire. When feeling such things, a bottle was his first source of comfort. Evidently, Monti was his second. He barged into her quarters completely hammered and sobbing about brown eyes and a voice warm as whiskey and just as strong. 

Direct quote from him, if Monti was a reliable source of information regarding his drunken, romantic rambles. 

He banged the back of his head against the headboard of the seat, Libertalia taunting him as it grew closer and closer. “How are you supposed to do this?” Arthur groaned, grimacing up at the roof of the cabin like it would make the Vertibird any slower, giving him more time to collect his thoughts.

“How do you usually exist around Preston?”

He turned his glare to the woman seated next to him. “Is Boswel giving you lessons on crypticality?” 

“Just take it easy, dude.” Monti patted him on the back, “But you gotta take it.”

“He is, isn’t he.”   
  
Monti scoff-laughed, a witch’s cackle he’d been the subject of many times, her bun of coily brown hair coming loose. “This is something really important for you and is a huge life-thing, but don’t go crazy about it.” She said, lively and warm, always his cheerleader since she kicked him in the crotch.

Yeah, they met under weird circumstances.

“So, just do the exact opposite of what I’m doing now.”

“Perfect! I knew there was a brain cell in that thick skull.” She mussed up his hair, giggling as he swatted her away. 

Arthur ran his hand through his hair, trying to smooth it back, repair the damage caused by the Canadian terror smirking proudly at her chaos sewn. “Are we certain that turning around isn’t an option?”   
  


“I’d sooner hijack this d*mn thing and pirouette us into the ocean than let you back out now.”

He hummed. “This is why you’re forbidden from being a pilot.”

“For _ now.” _

_ “Forever.” _

“You say that, but there are no rules against taking the course again until I pa- oh, hey, we’re above the landing pad.”

Ah, F*ck. 

~

The moment his boots hit the ground, Preston was at his side, clasping his hands behind his back to keep from giving in the urge of wrapping his arms around Arthur's neck.

Some day, he wished they didn't have to resist such things.

"Elder Maxson, sir." Preston smiled, curt and formal words betraying the glowing joy in his tone and eyes. 

Arthur steeled himself to keep the mask from slipping before everyone at the landing pads, but his own smile twitched itself into a fleeting existence. "Colonel Garvey." He nodded, grip at the strap of his duffel bag tightening.

Monti was also at his side, lagging behind, a fearsome sight in her Power Armor. 

As much as he would have prefered the Sentinel to watch over the Airport and Brotherhood in his absence, he didn't trust anyone else to accompany him. There were only so many excuses he could give before any other soldier would wonder why he would be staying in a private home with the Minutemen Colonel. 

Monti already knew why. There was no explaining, no excuses, no risk of word spreading - just the comforting mass of a titanium warrior, ready for combat or consoling him if need be.

Arthur glanced around, eyes trying to catch a glimpse of something. Something missing.

"Where is Boswel?" He asked slowly, viciously doubting the man wouldn’t make himself present at their first real date. Not after the way he beamed at Taffington.

Preston's smile turned into a smirk. "He said he was worried they'd turn down your slip, so he's getting things settled with the local leadership, making sure our negotiation isn't interrupted."

Translation: ensuring their absolute privacy. 

He could  _ feel _ Monti waggling her eyebrows under her helmet.

"Before we get settl- started, you need to go through some paperwork. Nahant is brutal when it comes to I.D." 

Arthur huffed, ansty like a child counting down the days to Christmas. "Of course." 

"Careful - you say that with any more venom, you might start shedding your skin." Monti piped up from behind him, much to his chagrin as Preston snorted.

~

Alright.

You would never hear him say this around Boswel, but…

...god d*mn, the man was born for house flipping.

The Brotherhood had seen Croup Manor from the air before Nahant was in Minutemen occupation, and  _ that  _ house was liable to collapse if someone even sneezed in a five-mile radius. Not to mention the ghouls and Mirelurks stalking the cape, giving salvage teams a nightmare of a time. 

But  _ this  _ house?

  
_ This  _ house was  _ nice _ . 

Croup manor had been completely restored, open walls patched and covered in blue paint with white trimming - blue made him want to vomit, but the building looked untouched by the bombs, almost trapped in time. All of the windows were clean, uncracked. The porch was fitted out, too. Hammock chairs and a table made from recycled flotsam sat in the corner of it, overlooking the sleepy town of Nahant and the ever-frantic work in Libertalia. 

Arthur stared at the blue behemoth, fidgeting with the duffel bag strap in his hand. 

_ Was  _ this a date? Did it count? 

Preston hung back, talking to the Minutemen guards and Monti about security - a conversation that was lost among the roaring storm of insecurities and nerves. 

What were they supposed to  _ do  _ here? What are you supposed to do in a house with your boyfriend? Not  _ sex, _ they'd  _ never  _ needed a  _ house  _ for that  _ before _ . 

The problem wasn't the house, it was him not being prepared, or experienced in this. Preston knew houses - he _ lived in them.  _ He knew what to do in houses. Arthur…

He'd never been in a house before.

Ever. 

Not even the ruins of one on missions, before he had to stop going due to his Elder status. The Brotherhood didn't bivouac in destroyed homes, they found bunkers, or something along that fortified line. 

What could  _ possibly  _ be in it?

It wasn't huge, the way mansions he'd see from Vertibirds were, but it was big. What made it need to be so big? 

The Brotherhood bases had mess halls, armories, labs, barracks, garages, offices, archives-

His books never really went into detail about the characters’ homes - brief glimpsed, quick descriptions, but never painted a clear image. In his head, he knew they were generally small, and so were the rooms when compared to any BoS base, but how could you get anything done in them? They weren’t protected, didn’t have the needed storage or labs and the garages were barely up to snuff. 

How did civilians  _ do  _ it?

Preston appeared at his side, eyes flickering with barely concealed excitement. 

"Coast is clear. I already got my bag unpacked this morning - lemme show you around?"

It wasn’t a question, evidenced by Preston taking his arm and dragging him up the steps, bubbly as ever.

~

Houses were utterly bizarre. 

That storage closet Preston called a kitchen didn’t even have industrial freezers, didn’t have the walk-in pantries - it wasn’t as bad as the space in Preston’s room at Taffington, but good God, even the fridge looked more of some art-piece, not a piece of high-tech that you relied on. 

Even weirder was how small the manor was, it felt suffocating. Maybe it was just cramped with all the furniture Arthur still didn’t know or understand the terms for - like the coffee table, a table for specifically coffee which stood too low to be of any use, in front of a couch. Couches were the one thing he recognized, and even  _ these  _ couches freaked him the hell out. What the actual f*ck was Boswel’s problem with standard colors? The couch in the living room on the second floor was this bright blue floral pattern, the armchairs and loveseat in the library had this dark, navy flannel. In the BoS, couches were whatever was scavenged and brought back - they were dingy, faded in color, patterns worn away. 

What’s more, is that Boswel made them himself. Apparently he was ‘top of his class’ in Home Ec., Woodshop, and Metalshop. So, this pre-war a**hole crawls up from a freezer, and then just starts hammering and sewing away until the Commonwealth is actually livable.

Arthur shook his head, trying to focus on the novel he’d plucked from dark shelves in the library. It was a wonderful room, the only one that didn’t give him nausea, shelves lining every wall up to the ceiling and filled so many books - many of them he’d dreamed of getting his hands on. The one he couldn’t seem to focus on was a favorite of his when he was a teen, back when he had time to read. It was called ‘Giovanni’s Room’ by a New York writer named James Baldwin. 

He had related with the main character, David, at that time, but Preston’s off-key singing from downstairs in that awful excuse for a kitchen made the protagonist’s selfish actions almost absurd. 

His thoughts trailed off again, the present so very captivating compared to a novel he’d read hundreds of times before. 

Ever since he was young, he ate alone - people often stared when he was out in the mess hall of the Citadel, and being as shy as he was, he took to bringing meals back to his room. It was an easy remedy, until even the short moments of being watched when he went to go  _ get  _ food became too much to bear. 

Especially after Sarah, and he was finally the elder. 

So, he hoarded small foodstuffs. Ration, granola, or protein bars mostly, things found in bulk in military outposts and depots - things that wouldn’t go in shortage if he snuck a few dozen. Cade had voiced his concerns about his isolative eating habits, said that eating alone too much ‘stunted social skills’, pretending that his social skills weren’t already f*cked from birth. Leadership? He’d been taught those. Talking to someone normally, as another person?

Can’t break what was never whole in the first place.

He mentioned it to Preston, about four months into their relationship. The guy offered him homemade turnovers, and suddenly he had to grapple with his stomach turning over at the thought of eating around someone else. 

Life-long habits will do that to you. 

Trying to explain that no, he wasn’t repulsed by Preston’s cooking, he was just unhealthily private, only earned him what he called the ‘Proper Adult Glare’. It was when Preston stared at him with wide eyes, sighed, and either pinched the bridge of his nose or rubbed his temples before lecturing him. 

To say Preston lost his sh*t upon learning that Arthur hadn’t eaten with anyone since he was eight or nine would be an understatement. 

Saying that he lost his sh*t upon learning that it was so bad, Arthur only got coffee _ at night when the mess hall was empty  _ so he could have it in the morning - which meant it would be colder than bone, since he didn’t have a microwave - would be a  _ severe  _ understatement. 

So, add that trauma with the fact that there was a stocked kitchen and a fortnight of alone-time, and of course Preston would insist on, quote, ‘making actual food that tastes like something’ for him. Preston didn’t share his general’s faith, but he spoke  _ religiously  _ of his family’s recipes, especially his grandmother’s calas and great-grandfather’s radstag ossobuco.

No, Arthur had no idea what either of those recipes were. But Preston’s fondness and nostalgia while he talked were all he needed to believe his loyalty to his family’s cuisine was not undeserved. 

He glanced up from his book, trying to pick out what Preston was singing downstairs. It didn’t matter if he was good or not - Preston’s voice was beautiful to him anyway.

~

“...Are these... _ spices… _ ?” Arthur asked, wary as he eyed the labeled glass jars littering the counter. The kitchen had a heavy, warm smell, vaguely herbaceous and smoky and probably the most intense aroma he’d ever inhaled that didn’t make him vomit. 

Preston smirked, full of boasting while he tidied up the cooking space. “My family’s always managed to grow herbs and spices - convinced my mom to let the Institute take some samples to make them easier to come by, so now more people can actually season their food.” That smugness faded softly into a bitter realization. “...But they probably won’t, if Grandma Eddie’s anything to go by.” He muttered to himself, barely audible.

Arthur skimmed over the small jars, few titles recognizable to him. Thyme, paprika, oregano, cayenne pepper, garlic and onion powder - how many of these were actually needed? Would just one not work fine? “Is that your grandmother, or the psychic in Sanctuary?”

Checking a small, hardly visible screen on the tiny-a**, puny oven and fiddling some dials, Preston took the lid off of a large pot, steam and more of that fragrance filling the room. “My great-times-seven grandmother - you’re thinking of Mama Murphy.”

He hummed in acknowledgement, trying to discern the contents of the pot, before Preston’s words hit him like a train. “Wait- times  _ seven?” _

“Yep. She’s a ghoul.”

Arthur ran some numbers in his head. “That still doesn’t make sense, unless everyone in your family had kids before they were twenty.”

Preston grinned again, that home-wistful look he had often. “Grandma Eddie was one hundred twenty-four when the bombs dropped. Her kids were about fifty, and grandkids in their twenties.” 

_ “One hundred twenty-four.” _ Arthur echoed, the idea of living past even fifty in the wasteland a naive dream. “And not even the  _ bombs  _ killed her?”

“I don’t anything can, at this point. She survived a shotgun to the chest when she was my age, and having three kids when the first one was supposed to kill her.” Preston mused, stirring another pot of something white and fluffy. Rice, maybe? He heard of it a few times. 

“Care to elaborate on that first near-death incident?” He prodded, coming up behind Preston and wrapping his arms around him, not quite towering, but tall and big enough to surround warmly.

His lover chuckled softly, leaning back into his chest. “Sh*tty husband had an affair, she left him, he found her and tried to kill her, almost did, but she stabbed him with a fire poker. Guess who died.” 

“Are you laughing at your grandmother nearly dying?” Arthur chided, nosing at Preston’s neck. 

“Grandpa Murder was a CIA hit-man and 6 7’’. Grandma Eddie was 4 5’’ and missing a leg from a farm accident. He deserved to get mocked for dying to a gnome with a stick.”

“Is he called Grandpa Murder because of his job, or…”

“He killed seven people at his boarding school with a chainsaw in his teens. His job and the thing with Grandma were just tacked on incidents.”

“...Oh.” Arthur winced. He cleared his throat, trying to change the subject. “So, what are you making?”

Preston beamed proudly as he poured more of something from the jars into the larger pot. “Mirelurk etouffee - my mom made it whenever someone came back from a long trip, I guess to celebrate no one dying in the wasteland. It’s basically a seafood stew with rice.”

He rested his chin on Preston’s shoulder, so adoring of the way he fit in his arms. “Is that french?”

“Kinda. It’s Creole and Cajun, the former being basically a mixed race, the latter being African slaves being mixed with immigrants from Acadia, which was a French colony in America. They’re kind of the same thing, but there’s some distinctions.”

“You seem to know your history.” Arthur mused, still clinging to Preston like a koala. 

Preston hummed in affirment. “We’ve written our own family history books and every one of us had to read them. Granny Ed didn’t want us to lose our identity and culture to the wasteland like so many others.”

A huff laced with soft laughter slipped from him, quieted by the sizzling of the pots and their contents. He was a  _ f*cking Maxson _ \- he knew his d*mn family history. “Did you have to take tests on it?”

“I’m guessing you had to with yours?”

“Every year until my eighteenth.”

  
“Sometimes I wonder how you turned out normal.” Preston said dryly, reaching for a drawer and pulling a spoon from it. He took a spoonful of the orange, heavenly-smelling stew, and held it up past his shoulder. “Try this.” 

More accustomed to eating around Preston - still not his  _ own brothers and sisters,  _ though - he curiously took the spoon, noting its contents. Vegetables, chunks of mirelurk meat, leaves he assumed were spices, and a thick broth.

_ Good. F*cking. Lord. _

Maybe it was the seasoning, maybe the wasteland's bland food, maybe his diet of flavorless ration bars-

But that godd*mn stew was the _ most divine thing _ he had ever tasted. Slightly spicy, strangely buttery - it tasted even better than it smelled. 

There was an odd pull at his heart. Something bittersweet. 

Was this just  _ waiting  _ for him?

A small room overlooking the beach, a man he loved so dearly, and something he wouldn't eat alone and apathetic of it?

He never cared about food. It was fuel, needing nutrients and energy - the ration bars he hid away were that. They didn't  _ need  _ to be enjoyable. F*ck, the last time he enjoyed food was the few instances he ate with Preston.

Why was everything he ever dreamed of not something he could have in the Brotherhood?

Why did he have to run away and lie to enjoy himself? 

"So? How is it?" Preston asked, unknowingly pulling him up from a downward spiral. 

_ "F*cking amazing." _

Preston fluffed up under the flattery. "If you think this is good, you need to try my mom's."

Another prick at his heart.

Preston talked about his family here and there. He'd have to meet them eventually.

Would his parents have liked Preston? Sarah would have. 

Would Preston's parents like him?

In-laws were hell. That's what all his books showed, anyway. The passive-aggressive mom, the disapproving dad, the meddling siblings; would he have that?

Would they make it long enough for him to even meet them?

Yet another needle.

They were fine - there was no glaring or underlying issue in their relationship. They said 'i love you' and meant it.

He was never good at accepting blessings. 

Mentally, he scolded himself for his pessimism. It hadn't even been a day - just a few hours and he was already losing it? At this rate, he'd be crying in Monti's shoulder by tomorrow afternoon. 

He tried to distract himself, hiding his face in Preston's shoulder. 

"What was that song you were singing earlier?"

"Huh? Oh, I think it's called 'I got to cross the River Jordan’ by Blind Willie McTell. Jess's fond of old blues music, so he's always singing that one while he's working or playing on a tape he has. It's one of his favorites."

Oh dear f*cking god.

Not even the music was sacred. His favorite color was blue, and a favorite song of his was a blues song.

Arthur felt fatally ill. 

"I think Boswel has an unhealthy obsession."

"His son's middle name is Delft."

_ "Delft?" _

"It's a blue used in Dutch pottery."

"There goes my appetite."

~

Even after all this time, he never thought he’d get used to this. Waking up with someone in your arms? Unthinkable not even a year ago. 

But, as Preston snored ever so softly against his collarbone, it was a wonder how he hadn’t gone mad without this. The window was open, and the smell of the sea was gentle on the breeze, cold enough to be an excuse to get closer, hold him tighter. 

And yet he still couldn’t seem to trust this. 

He ran his hand through his lover’s hair, toying with soft curls.

It’s a feeling that burned hot as molten steel, the kind that freezes over into something cold and jagged; not a feeling that passes, only cements. For all the words he knew, none of them quite fit it. Maybe fury. Vindictive. Regretful. 

Preston stirred in his arms, pressing a kiss to his jaw in comatose.

This was waiting for him the whole time?

Years, f*cking years, of loneliness, crying like the child he was that there was nothing for him but the Brotherhood and war and no one would love him for anything other than his name, reading the same books over and over in tears because he knew he’d never have anything near that but still reading because _ God, _ he wanted nothing more than knowing what it was like. 

What  _ tenderness  _ was like. 

What it was like to have something fix a loose strand of hair for you, fix your tie or collar, brush their skin against yours, being smiled at, even if only it was because you existed and that was enough for them. 

Preston was there in the Commonwealth this whole time. 

This. Whole.  _ F*cking. Time.  _

He watched all of those tender little things happen in real life. When you’re constantly at war, you grasp for happiness wherever you can - love happens easily. 

Not with him. 

It was a vile, envenomed jealousy, so much so that people noticed how deeply his face darkened at the sight of someone else’s luck. His soldiers thought it was a matter of  _ being appropriate _ and  _ respect  _ and  _ keep it in the bedroom _ \- did they not pick up on the desperate want and resigned defeat in his eyes?

All those years of hurt, of falling apart in this strange, limbo isolation, where he was alone in a crowd, in front of hundreds, in a room of dozens. Alone even when talking to someone. F*ck, he hadn’t even thought it was normal to think and feel that way until Monti, who only understood because she had a similar life and hurt the same way he did.

It wasn’t as though she was the only one he talked to.

Preston had a better understanding of his traumas than he did, Cade could smell mental illness like an infected wound, Ingram gravitated to the hurt young, Kells was always breaking down his door and making sure he wasn’t collapsing. 

At first, he always scoffed at Kells’ worry.

Until he tried hanging himself while black-out drunk.

It didn’t seem so needlessly paranoid after that. 

He felt selfish about that moment for many reasons; one of which was because of Preston.

His lover’s darker thoughts were not unknown to him. They talked about it very few times, Preston not wanting to vent about a pain so personal with someone who hadn’t felt the same. He got it, he really did.

But, God, he felt like an a** for never telling him about his. 

Maybe it was the “Oh, yeah? I tried to kill myself too, so _ there!” _ thing he despised more than Mutants. Maybe he just wasn’t ready to talk about it. Either way, maybe if he had, Preston wouldn’t have felt alienated in his arms.

Mental kick in the a** for making another strawman. 

Monti pointed that out to him, a while back. He didn’t even remember what he said. Something about what he assumed, what feeling he assigned to Preston, and she came down on him for ‘making a strawman argument to deny reality because it scared him’. 

Honestly, he didn’t know why he told as much to Monti as he did. Maybe he was desperate to talk to someone that wasn’t really BoS, wasn’t required to write it down and send it to Cade or Kells. Someone who did not give a single flying f*ck about his name. 

Preston fumbled over, pressing his back against his chest. He glanced over his shoulder at the clock - 3:19 A.M. 

He fell asleep, he did. But...sleep wasn’t coming easy. It always did with Preston. He blamed it on unfamiliar surroundings.

What always got him down and out on nights like this?

Whiskey. 

He kissed Preston’s cheek, slowly and carefully crawling out of bed. 

The house was, admittedly, well put together. Cozy and pristine, even if everything was blue. Everything. Even the window glass was tinted blue.

He couldn’t believe how  _ uncomfortable  _ he was in the manor, though. Everywhere he looked, he expected scaffolding, metal ramps and stairs, weapon racks - Brotherhood things.

Army things. 

He shoved the question of why he was uncomfortable in a home, designed for comfort, down into some dark recess of his mind. 

Even the stairs were foriegn to him. If under attack, how would you get up and down easily in your armor? They were narrower, spiraled, the railing had no cover to hide behind. 

Was this what life was supposed to be?

He needed a drink. Or a lot of drinks. Maybe the whole bottle. Depended on if he spiraled after the first. 

And no, despite what everyone seemed to think, he was not an alcoholic. He was not addicted, he didn’t have withdrawal, and he wasn’t constantly drinking. He drank heavily, but not to the extent of ‘Jesus Christ, someone call AA’. 

Cade seemed to hate that he wasn’t. Probably because he couldn’t force therapy and meds on him if he was just drinking casually, and not suffering from an addiction. He couldn’t enforce recovery if Arthur had nothing to recover from. 

There was a weird quiet in the house. The ocean outside barely made a sound outside, and aside from gentle creaking from his steps, the world may as well have been frozen. 

Out of all of the rooms, the downstairs living room was the most uncomfortable.

Photographs lined the wall, trinkets filled every shelf and inch of space, the couch was used, worn in with affection - a family couch, something someone brought here from home. The room felt haunted, almost, almost as though the ghost of life was watching him from the walls, waiting for him to learn its name.

His gaze caught on the pictures, set in mismatched frames and placed in random clusters, like it didn’t matter where they went as long as you could see them. There was a pull to them, some tear in his heart wanting to see the windows into some other life. 

He shuffled across the room, the ocean outside coming alive in the early morning hours, the even waves crashing softly down at the beach. 

In the dark room, the faces in the frames were hardly visible, but one stood out. The frame was blue, adorned by seaglass and ‘Ad Meliora’ etched in at the bottom. He rubbed at his eyes, trying to adjust to the dim lighting. 

The photo was taken by some handheld camera by Boswel, grinning widely at a firepit on a balcony, overlooking the sea under a peach-pink sky, his son Shaun on Danse’s lap and roasting marshmallows. 

And Danse was happy in it. He smiled broadly, wholly, caringly down at the boy in his arms. 

Paladin Danse was not a happy man. 

Everyone you asked in the BoS said the same thing, that he did not relax, did not calm, did not find true joy or peace in anything he did. That he burned with need for purpose and set himself ablaze at every turn of respite, that he worked himself to the bone and then the marrow. 

But in that photograph, with Boswel’s kid on his knee and a shiny ring on his left hand?

Maybe he  _ never was  _ meant for the Brotherhood. 

Maybe he was meant for that sky, above that sea, with that navy blue ring this whole time.

Arthur ached at the thought of it. 

This whole time, Danse spent his life trying to find peace in the BoS, while Jesse was frozen in the Vault. Was he supposed to plan for him to thaw out? To meet him? Befriend him? Save him? Marry him?

Do you plan for that? 

Do you plan for something and hope it happens?

He had, _ they both had, _ spent their lives trying to find purpose and fulfillment in their work, only to know peace in the shape of another. 

Arthur, with tentative shaking hands, took the photo from the table it sat on.

It was almost stupid how well he fit with Boswel. That photograph would not have worked, wouldn’t have been the same, without Danse in it, without him on that balcony with that fire pi-

Wait.

Arthur stared at the image, knowing that he’d seen that balcony before. The land in the background across the ocean, the railing, the pit-

It was the balcony upstairs.

This was Boswel’s house. 

Croup Manor wasn’t just an available space, it was Boswel’s house that he’d brought his husband and son to. 

That he told him to come to. That he let him stay with his lover in. 

Arthur looked up at the other photographs, looked around the room. The photos were all of Danse and Shaun and Boswel, every trinket from his travels. 

This was Boswel’s home. 

And he stood in Boswel’s living room, surrounded by captured moments of time and mementos while his lover slept upstairs and happiness slipped away from him like butterflies. 

All he ever wanted, he had been given graciously.

And he still could not sooth the bones of his name that carried the weight of the world long before he held it.

He wanted love. Preston came to him, tender and true. He wanted to be alone with him, to be able to breathe as himself near him in private. Boswel let them stay in a house of his. That joyous moth escaped him, still. Trying to catch the elusive feeling of peace in his grasp seemed a d*mning endeavor.

Danse had found a moment’s peace here. 

Why couldn’t _he?_

The ocean sang in choir outside the blue windows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1: I wrote this with only ONE COMMENT as my motivation. I uploaded a chapter of my xfic and. only one person has validated me in like five days so. hah. Haha. 
> 
> hm. 
> 
> 2: I already have 13 pages of the final chapter of this, I just need to finish up the ending and go back over it to refine/edit, so it should be up here this week, hopefully.


	3. If your cascade, ocean wave blues come

The burn of whiskey went down easily, washing away nerves that Monti’s words could never. He took another swig, lamenting the ever-decreasing amount of salvation in the bottle. 

“I had the same problem, really, I did. When you’re army, you can’t be anything else without feeling like you’re pulling out your teeth.” 

Arthur wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, trying to ignore that she was pretty much in her underwear. His fault for knocking on her room door at six in the morning. “How do you skip the ‘pulling teeth’ part?”

“You don’t.” Monti quipped, using her bottle of beer more for gesturing than self-medication. “My mom made me stay with my dad for a month in Toronto once, when I was sixteen. I flipped the f*ck out and didn’t stop till I was surrounded by a grey military base again.”

“So, I’m just going to be losing my mind for the entirety of our stay.” He grimaced.

  
“Wish I could tell you otherwise, hun, but this isn’t something you can fix with a pep talk.” Monti said, voice tinted with regret. “It's one of those sick jokes of life, and all you can do is grin and bear the brunt of the punchline."

Arthur's face darkened further as he took another drink, the warmth a bitter comfort down his throat. The small room fell into silence, the two drinking in a wordless mutual understanding. 

Boswel had the motel painted blue, too. 

The bedsheets had a blue wave pattern, matching the art on the powder-blue walls. Every piece of wood was stained blue, every glass and fabric was blue. Even the carpet was blue. 

Was it so strange to admit that the blue was now a violent concept to him?

Lately, all of his pain was surrounded by Boswel's suffocating taste in color. His relationship with Preston being revealed and discussed was in a room of blue. A two week stay with his boyfriend in a manor - what should have been a dream but turned into a nightmare as he was forced to admit that comfort would never come to him - was blue. Everything that should have been wonderful and magical was blue. Everything he had  _ wanted _ was blue. Not being secretive with his love, time alone with his love - all of it in this blue expanse and it  _ hurt. _

Monti broke the silence, voice quiet in the sleepy purgatory of the early morning misery. "So, what freaked you out?"

The question had no easy answer. Was it one thing? A culmination of things? 

Maybe it was everything and nothing at once and he was dunce. 

“God, I don’t even-” His words cut off into a frustrated groan, the web of feelings leading to things he didn’t want to confront and tangling into something he couldn’t ignore. “It’s f*ckin’  _ Boswel’s house _ , did you know that? He brought his family to it, husband, kid - there’s pictures in the living room of them,  _ the f*ck?” _

Monti’s eyes widened, taking a swig of her beer. “Yeah, no, that’s...that’s kinda weird. But then again, everything with Bos' is."

"I know that  _ intimately _ , but this time is different." He hissed, gesturing out the window to the manor on the hill. "His.  _ Family _ . Vacation home. He's slept there with his husband and child, and he let me stay there. It's the same godd*mn bed! How am I-" Arthur's words dropped off into a groan as he palmed at his face. 

"So, it's the trust of it that's got you losing it."

"Well- yes, but…" Why were words so puzzling right now? "What am I supposed to do?"

Monti blinked. "With what?"

"Anything." He breathed the admission, the word coming like spat-out poison. "I've never wanted to run from something this hard."

"We both know what's makin' this happen."

"Don't." Arthur snapped, eyes and voice going sharp as defensiveness surged in his chest. He softened, too tired to keep the energy. "Just...not now."

"You can't go on forever like this, doll."

He sunk in his seat, running a hand through his hair. "I know."

"Your best bet is to try and be rational about it. Don't go thinking too hard about the feely stuff, and make sure you eat something later." She said, firm.

He grunted in acknowledgement, not sure he could handle food next to that ever entangling knot.

~

His favorite thing about Preston was the man's ability to know when to ask, and when to not mention anything.

He could just lay there, head against his chest, arms across his back, for as long as he needed, and not be asked why he was so needy. 

Second favorite thing? 

Preston was really good with his hands. 

He stroked through Arthur's hair in even, loving rhythm, the motion bringing the call of sleep closer and closer. A steady pulse against his cheek was dull and faint in Preston's ribcage, but he counted and listened to the beats nonetheless. It was his ideal moment. Everything he wanted was right there. 

And it was surrounded by blue.

The bedspread was a deep navy, pillows they lay against had blue florality. The room was engulfed with blue, but with his face hidden in Preston's skin, he couldn't see it. He could ignore it like he did so many things. He could ignore it but it would still be blue if he looked up from Preston's chest. 

"You’re thinking too hard again, aren’t you.”

Arthur sighed against his chest, sheepish of how obvious he was sometimes. “When am I not?” He said dryly. 

“Doesn’t make it any better.” Preston rubbed small circles into his shoulder blade with his thumb. “What’s up?”

Many, many things, all of them too horrid to confront in that peaceful moment. “Nothing, nothing, I’m just…” He gave a vague wave at the world around him. “Trying to settle in this, I guess.”

“And you’ve been having a hard time trying.”

“What makes you say that?”

  
“You get this look in your eye when you're freaking out over nothing. Like a startled puppy.”

Instance #132 of Preston comparing him to something canine. “Are you calling me cute?” He smirked against his chest.

“If the shoe fits.” 

They went silent again. 

~

All it took was five days, and there he was in the bathroom, trying to still quivering hands and uneven breath. 

Arthur cupped his hands under the running faucet, splashing clean water against his face. The coldness did little to ground him, as he trusted it to many times before. Of course, those times were in a place that wasn’t  _ bizarre _ .

On the other-hand, who or what was the odd-one-out: the house, or him?

He paced as much as he could in the small bathroom, lining up points and counterpoints. Bias was a deadly thing. Was the house in the wrong for being unfamiliar to him? Was he in the wrong for not knowing any semblance of civilian life? 

_ Someone _ was to blame. The name was in his heart but uttering the words went against everything Sarah was and died for. He couldn’t say it. Thinking it felt blasphemous enough already. Arthur chewed at the flesh of his cheek, glancing around the room.

Being there was blasphemous enough already. 

He was made from  _ war _ .  _ For  _ war. 

Not soft blue bathrooms, not indigo bedding, not mutfruit juice from blue seaglass cups on the porch while his lover - another man, because he just  _ had  _ to be born with such feelings - ranted about an op gone wrong. 

He was made for  _ war _ . Not  _ this _ .

He was made from steel, shaped into a leader to take his family forged from blood and guide them to victory. All of their deaths were on his shoulders - he  _ had  _ to lead them to victory. He  _ had  _ to. 

He was the cold, unyielding steel that was the Brotherhood. And you do not yield, you may break. Even the hardest steel would snap under enough duress. 

His duress was softness, evidently. Warmth. Comfort.  _ Peace _ . He was made for  _ war _ . He would not survive anything else. Mutants, ghouls, a deathclaw when he could barely lift his own gun - he defeated those. He won. He was made to find victory in their bloodlust eyes. 

You can’t win against an enemy that isn’t there. 

You can’t win against an enemy if there is no d*mn enemy.

Five days.

It had been five days since he left the airport, and five days since he last heard a gunshot. 

How? This was the wasteland, gunshots were everywhere. They were his bedtime stories and lullabies when Mother scoffed at his need for one. There were no gunshots in Nahant. No one was shooting anything - no invaders, no wildlife, not even a practice range. The practice range used laser pointers. Not laser rifles, pointers. Electronic shooting with no spent ammo, no crack in the sky. 

In the wasteland, silence meant something was about to break out. 

But it had been five days and nothing had happened.

Which, in the wasteland, meant sh*t was about to go down. 

But nothing was happening. 

  
Silence was death. The enemy was preparing to assault, looking for your weak points and salivating at the idea of tearing your family, tear them apart limb from limb, take the kids and do god knows what to them. He’d seen it happen, it was a base in the Capital, he told them things were wrong and they didn’t listen and then they-

Arthur pressed his back to the door, sliding down to the white tiling. 

And then they were gone. Because they had a moment’s peace and trusted it. 

It had been five days since a gunshot. 

The manor was not defendable.

No perimeter but a four-foot wood fence - easy to destroy or get around or over. The windows were not bullet-proof. There was no quick cover in the house; not even the railing on the porch or balcony. Nearest turret was a mile down the cape at the gates to Nahant. Only protection from the beach were guards patrolling and a few scavenged, working boats Boswel pulled out of his magical, technology-thought-gone-now-here-again a**. 

Nahant was strict with rules - unless needed, guns remained in the cabinet. Gun cabinet? In the BoS, that was an armory and it held more than two rifles good for little else than shooting fowl. No, he couldn’t even bring Final Judgement. Went against their regulations. Monti only got to keep her Power Armor and laser rifle because she was his private guard. Which didn’t matter, because she was half a mile down the road. He’d be dead before she could eliminate any threat coming after him. 

A gentle tapping came from downstairs. Rhythmically, one following after the other. Footsteps. Creak from the rusty hinges of the kitchen door. Preston was in the library.

**_F*CK._ **

The door popped from a hinge as Arthur barreled down the stairs, almost thrilled at the thought of combat. 

“Wh- babe?” Preston called from the library, understandably confused at his boyfriend acting like a cat with the zoomies. He didn’t hear, heart pounding in his ears because hell yeah, he was  _ right! Peace _ was a _ facade, war _ was  _ eternal _ ,  _ f*ck you Boswel! _

Arthur snatched the rifle from the cabinet at the base of the stairs, charging down the kitchen door with his body and aiming down the sights at the figure standing at the counters. He missed, the bright projectile hitting the coffee pot with a sharp  _ 'ping' _ . 

The figure didn’t flinch, tilted their head at the flaming machiner-

Tilted their head. 

Boswel turned around, unphased by the death of his technical property. “Oh, good morning!”

_ “What in f*ck’s name are you doing here.” _

Preston leaned in from the doorframe, eyes wide. 

“Why do you have a gun…?” He said under his breath, nearly mouthing the words. His eyes caught on the caffiene-producing casualty. “Arthur, you  _ didn’t _ .”

“My apologies. Didn’t mean to startle you.” Boswel smiled brightly, accustomed to Arthur shooting at him.

“Ever heard of comming in?”

“What?”

“You don’t enter a premise without identifying yourself.” Arthur growled, forcing himself to practice trigger discipline. 

Preston’s face fell. “Knocking. You mean  _ knocking _ .”

“ _ Knocking _ ?- Forget it, what are you doing here?”

Boswel tilted his head again. “I was in town, and thought I’d see how you two were doing. Catch up.” Preston crept up to his side, hands coming over his own and manually prying his fingers from the weapon, taking it from him like you would a child with a grenade. “So, how  _ are  _ you doing? I see the coffee pot isn’t well.”

“Just fine.” He grit out, trying to release the tension in his shoulders. 

“Wonderful!” Boswel clapped his hands together, the sharp sound making the Elder flinch. “And you, Preston?”

Preston stared at the coffee pot, holding the rifle tightly away from Arthur. His brows could not have furrowed any deeper. The bafflement radiating from him only slightly made his boyfriend question the rationality of his decisions in the last three minutes. 

“I’m going to take that as good.” The Dutch Devil ignored every possible thing in the scene and turned on his heel to the door. “I have to talk to Captain Harkens, but I will stop by later to chat once I’m done with her. Enjoy your day!”

There is no way to describe the seething hatred in Arthur’s eyes as the general practically skipped out of the kitchen and down the road. 

A gentle hiss tore his glare from Boswel’s back as Preston - still bewildered - sprayed the smoking pot with the fire extinguisher, face totally blank. 

“You shot the coffee pot.”

“Yeah, I missed, sorry-”

“No, no no.” Preston didn’t look away from the burning machine. “You shot the coffee pot.”

“...yes?”

“Why?”

“I was aiming for the intruder.”

Preston rubbed his eyes. "The intruder."

He nodded, wondering why his boyfriend looked at him like he had grown two heads.

"You tried to shoot  _ Boswel." _

"Well- I didn't  _ know  _ it was-"

Preston held his hand up, cutting him off. "You heard someone at the door and your first instinct was to shoot them." He said slowly. Not angry, more like he had just noticed something, saw something Arthur didn’t. "Would you have done that at the _ airport?" _

Oh.

Uh.

"...Maybe?" Arthur offered, sheepish and feeling like a child being scolded as he rubbed at the nape of his neck. "I wouldn't need to at the airport. Here, it could have been  _ anyone _ . Anyone could have had harmful intentions."

"Arthur. Babe." Preston breathed, unblinking. "We're not  _ out in the middle of nowhere." _

He felt the flush of embarrassment creep up his cheeks. "But you never know what might happen."

"True. I didn't know you'd shoot the  _ f*cking coffee pot, _ for example."

He'd never hear the end of this, would he.

~

Okay, maybe he was a little erratic. He’s big enough to admit when he made a foolish decision. Going gung-ho without thinking about it was, without question, a foolish decision. But, in his defense, the silence was against everything he had known; was he really expected to not jump at something familiar? 

Arthur paced in the garage, probably rendering himself bald by running his hands through his hair. Usually, he’d smoke or drink to self-medicate. However, Preston would know if he chain-smoked an entire carton and he did not need the lecture right now. Drinking this early on a Tuesday would earn the same results. Sure, he was out getting a new coffee maker, but he was perceptive enough. 

He racked his brain trying to come up with the upsides of this. If he could just rationalize this as something not inherently negative, he’d be fine. He was a  _ tactician  _ for f*cks sake, all he needed was to find the tact in...whatever the _ sh*t this situation was.  _

Okay, good things; he was alone with Preston, privacy from the BoS, some time without being swamped in paperwork. Easy enough - Preston was lovely to be around, he always wanted some time away from his work, and not having to read the same report from ten different perspectives was great. These were good.

Bad things, because he couldn’t leave well enough alone and just be happy with the upsides; the entire settlement would crumble at the first sight of combat, he wasn’t familiar with anything in his current environment, Boswel was coming over again sometime later, his maybe-there-maybe-not mental illness he refused to get a diagnosis for wouldn’t stop flaring up at everything. 

Now the question remained; were the pros worth more than the cons?

It didn’t feel like they were.

At least the garage was kind of familiar. There were no droves of engineers and the endless screech of tools and machinery, but the tool shelves and power armor frame was something he knew. 

A sharp, loud ‘ping’ echoed through the house, a sound Preston told him was the doorbell and asked him to not shoot whoever rang it. Arthur sucked in a breath, turning around and slamming his forehead into the concrete wall. 

He wasn’t  _ completely  _ unaware of social norms - even if it made his skin crawl, he went to answer the door.

There was a painful tension in his shoulders as the old wood groaned as he swung it open. 

"Good evening, Arthur!" Boswel chirped, a bag of something steaming hanging from his hand at his hip. 

He stepped back, gestured to the entrance hall as a welcoming inside. "Evening." The word came out far more uncomfortable than he should have allowed. 

"Apologies for startling you earlier. Frankly, I wasn't sure you two would be in here." Boswel said brightly, tone and posture the warm, conversational demeanor the man was an expert at adopting. 

If only Arthur could figure out how to be that calm and easy-going. "Why wouldn't we be?" He asked, following him into the kitchen.

Boswel set the bag on the table, rummaging through it. "The beach is always lovely in the morning. I remember loving sea-side strolls with my beaus when I was your age - wouldn't have surprised me if you and Preston walked the entire cape." As he set various, bright-colored boxes on the table, he glanced around. “Is Preston here?”

Arthur rubbed at the nape of his neck, opting to ignore the redness of his cheeks. “No, he went out to get another…” He gestured towards the empty space on the counter, scotch marks still stained into the blue marble. 

“Ah. Did he just leave, or…?”

“He’s been gone for about,” Arthur leaned back out the doorway, glancing at the clock hanging in the living room. “Forty minutes.”

Boswel clicked his tongue. “Yeah, he might be gone awhile. Nahant is a touch prickly with its mercantile.” 

Arthur nodded stiffly, jaw clenched. There was nothing in him that wanted to be alone with Boswel longer than he had to. Not when Preston could have been there as a mediator, as the middle ground between them. 

What was he even supposed to do? Talk to the man? About what, exactly? They’d only ever talked during meetings, or the times Boswel cornered him and tried to see past the mask of Elder Maxson. No, scratch that. The times he  _ did  _ see past Elder Maxson, and felt pity and concern with whatever was underneath.

  
Boswel paused, eyeing him for a moment. His eyes softened, that tell-tale sign that he saw something he felt obligated to remedy.

  
“How have you been?” He asked after a beat of silence. “You seem... _ tense.” _

_ Yeah, no sh*t. _

Silence fell over the room as he tried to not notice how Boswel looked at him. Could have been pity, maybe sympathy - whatever it was, nausea filled his stomach from it. Maybe it was the god d*mn blue attire the man never seemed to change for another color. 

Arthur palmed at his face, sighing as his gaze turning to the idly swirling ceiling fan. “Can never seem to avoid this, can I.”

Boswel laughed softly. “Someone once told me you were a successful general not only because you were charismatic, but genuine.” He said, quiet, and eased into a chair at the table. “Such men can’t hide their bearings so easily.”

Arthur, tentatively, as an experiment, took a seat across from him. “So, this isn’t obvious only for you?”

“You seem to have a habit of being more…” Boswel vaguely waved his hand in the air. “Well.  _ Irritation  _ has a habit of making people more forthright, for lack of better saying. And - considering how you murdered my poor,  _ innocent  _ coffee pot - I strike a nerve with you.”

“No kidding.”

Boswel made a short hum, turning his gaze out to the sea. In the silence that fell over them - Arthur unaware of where to go, Boswel seemingly content with not pushing - the shades of blue amongst the room taunted him yet again. 

Everywhere the older man had been, blue lingered in his path. He surrounded himself in it, drenching this part of the wasteland he’d made his kingdom in a shade that had some meaning behind it. Twice was a coincidence, thrice a pattern. This? Blue in every corner where Boswel had left some mark? 

It was a legacy Arthur wasn’t sure Boswel was aware he was leaving. It was a calling card, a symbol, a beacon for something he had yet to understand. 

“So, is this yet another time of you clamming up, or do you care to use a willing shoulder?” Boswel asked after a time, prodding without force, without insistence. 

Arthur sighed deeply. “I doubt you’d be of any help even if I  _ did  _ feel like explaining myself to you.”

“Sometimes -  _ most  _ times - all one needs is just the action of speaking freely. Whether whoever listens can help is only a bonus.” 

God, he hated when Boswel was right. 

Arthur deflated in his chair, slouching into himself. It wasn’t like he hated Boswel, nor did he like him. The man was just...bizarre. He emanated some force that was indescribable, nigh otherworldly. Boswel was a breath of fresh air after smog, blue sky after storm, cold water after hot day. Something irrefutably good, but-

He was never good at accepting blessings.

“I have no godd*mn idea what I’m doing." The confession slipped from what felt like an unholy, blasphemous mouth and into the cold still air between them. "I've never been in a place like this before and I just...can't seem to adjust. Everything I know, this place…"

Arthur glanced at their surroundings with tired eyes. Where he'd hear the crack of gunfire in the shooting range, came nothing but soft waves crashing. The air moved calmly, where the airport roared and thrashed from Vertibird blades. He looked outside and saw people dressed not in thick polymer armor, not tons of steel and tech, but clothes. Flannels and jeans, dresses and heels, soft cotton sweaters and bright patterned skirts. If he took a moment to breathe deeply, he'd smell sea salt and sand and sunlight, not steel and exhaust and gunpowder. 

“...I don’t know. It’s just not something I’ve figured out, I guess.”

“‘Figure out’?” Boswel repeated, one brow raised. "...This is unfamiliar enough that it's ruining everything?"

Arthur scoff-laughed, in disbelief that his issues hadn't been sniffed out the moment the other man laid eyes on him. They usually were. "I'm confident that none of this makes sense. You know how long it's been since I heard gunfire? Nearly a full week. That's just f*cking downright  _ unreasonable." _

Boswel's eyes widened, then narrowed thoughtfully, quiet for a moment. After a few seconds of silence, he spoke in a hushed tone, "You've never not heard gunshots."

"No." Arthur breathed as he smiled bitterly. "It's a consistent sound in the wasteland. If there aren't guns firing, their wielders are planning an ambush on you."

Boswel's face fell, expression darkened. "Are you so ingrained with war that peace is  _ frightening?" _ He whispered, voice low like addressing an antsy child.

Arthur quieted. 

It was one thing to know you're screwed up. Another for someone to notice. Yet another for someone to see the exact problem. Boswel knew everything. There was no getting around this. 

"How could it not be." He muttered. 

Boswel deflated, hand inching across the table to his. "It doesn't have to be. This could be something better for you."

"Can't see how." Arthur shoved the thoughts of how he couldn’t get this far with any of his own soldiers in the back of his conscience. 

_ "Patience with yourself." _ Boswel urged tenderly, squeezing his hand with the faintest grip. "Even the slightest tolerance for yourself can change every-"

Arthur shook off his hand. "I know you just want to help, I understand. But I don't think  _ you  _ do." He said plainly, voice flat. "This goes beyond what I expect  _ anyone  _ to understand."

Boswel smiled warmly. "You'd be surprised. The worst experiences are universal." 

Arthur quirked a brow. "You have any idea what this is like?" He challenged, lacking any hostile energy. "You've known this before, this... _ calmness _ . There's nothing about this that is unfamiliar to you. Everything about this, you know. I was raised to see all of this as a  _ warning sign, _ the ocean receding before a tsunami. This place goes against everything I was raised for."

"Arthur," Boswel said his name with a gentle patience he didn't know was possible. "I know the feeling intimately. This fear is not a strange one." The older man reached across the table, placing a hand on his shoulder with an understanding sympathy on his face, amidst piles of flame scars.

"How could you have been through anything like this?" Arthur pushed. 

"I was not raised for certain roles like you, but the gulf between 'normal' and 'better' is quite possibly the deepest of them all." Boswel said sagely. "My birth home may not be like your Citadel, but the change from it was just as polarizing. The human being dislikes any shift, no matter if it is for the better."

Arthur raised an eyebrow. "Your hometown?

The other man nodded. "Going from Greece to a large city was...well. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was my salvation. I can't imagine I'd be here if I hadn't left."

Arthur paused, information not adding up to a sensible answer. "You're Greek?" Boswel nodded. "But your name is Dutch…?"

"I... wasn't born in conventional means. I didn't have birth certificates or a legal name, so my uncle named me when I arrived in Amsterdam."

Arthur looked away. There was comfort in the conversation, in the sunlit room where the sounds of waves faintly echoed. But there was a guilt in it. He prodded further. "How was moving to Amsterdam like going from war to civility?" The question lacked bite, sarcasm. It was a quiet desperation to know that there was something normal, human, about him. That his life was not totally alien and bizarre, that his feelings were normal for his predicament. 

“It’s a long story. I'm a bit of a rambler, as is."

"I've patience and time to spare."

Boswel quirked a brow, a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. "Well, if you're so insistent." He settled in his chair, looking to the ceiling and licking his lip thoughtfully. “My home in Greece was a demanding one. I spent my days working, often alone. The only thing I had was my faith - no name, no real family, no reason to think of anything else beyond what I knew." He said, turning his gaze to the rolling sea. "And when I was sent to Amsterdam, suddenly what I knew was irrelevant. I had hours to myself without work. Where once I slept in a pile of hay with a pelt in the barn with the animals, I had a bed and room to call my own. I had a name, I had a family in my aunt, uncle, and cousins, I had an education, I had everything I didn't think existed."

"And I hated all of it." Boswel said, a laugh imprinted on his words. "It was new and terrifying. I couldn't comprehend that, for all of the troubles I went through in Greece, something new, strange, and  _ better _ , had been out there waiting for me the whole time. It gave me an anger that I haven't matched to this day. I hated that I didn't have to be unhappy, that it was something unnecessary and yet still out of my control." 

"One day, my aunt, a woman who could read anyone like a pamphlet, described my feelings in a way that made me realize why it hurt. It wasn't life to me. And if it wasn't life, it was death." Boswel spoke with solemn countenance, gazing across the sea’s edge. “No one realizes how bad things are until they are met with something better. The strangeness of the unknown only adds to our resistance to it, no matter how much we need it for ourselves.” 

Arthur followed his stare out to that thin line of horizon, where the blue ocean was overtaken by vivacious oranges and reds from the sun falling swiftly behind it. There was no foggy muddling of colors, no middle ground of green between the sun and sea. Just that clean divide, that unfazed line of difference. 

"I know I am a hopeless romantic, but it is vital to me that I do not leave you with the idea that this is a strange way to feel. " Boswel said, hands folded in front of him on the table. "While you are allowed to feel disdain and even fear at things such as this, the notion that you have  _ no reason to _ is nonsensical." 

Arthur huffed. He didn't want to meet the other man's eye, not when things were... _ like this _ . The eyes were the window to the soul, after all. If he dared meet the watchful gaze, it could all fall apart. He took in a breath, slow and even. "I know. Trust me, I know. It's just…" Arthur rubbed at his neck, glancing around the room for something to settle his eyes on, anything that wasn't the floor or his own hands. "Knowing changes nothing. There is no difference in my predicament if I know the rationality of it or not. I can utilize logistics and basic sense all I please, but it- it doesn't matter. Logic has no part in this. Whatever it is that  _ does _ control the machinations of this, I have simply no experience in it."

"You're a quick learner." Boswel stuck his chin out, resting his jaw on his hand and looking at Arthur down the bridge of his nose. "New things are just things that will eventually not be new anymore. But you have to embrace them to grow familiar, first." 

"If it were so simple, I would have done so already."

"That's the trick - it is that simple. But, because our brains are stupid and annoying and make everything harder for us, we convince ourselves it isn't. "

"And how is that supposed to be helpful?"

"The best trick for dealing with a liar is to  _ know  _ that they are a liar." Boswel said, that clever glint in his eye that was beyond frustrating as well as intriguing, like how a gambler doesn't smile as he teaches some of his tricks. A silent shrewdness, plainly obvious and irksome, but which birthed unending curiosity and questions. 

“So, I should simply ignore all of my training and take…” He waved broadly at nothing.  _ “-This, _ at face value.”

“Well,  _ yeah.” _

“Eloquently put, Boswel.”

Boswel rolled his eyes at him, but the small smile betrayed whatever annoyance the action was meant to signify. “It does get easier when you give up trying to make something of everything. Ask any other old person, they’ll tell you the same.” 

“I have asked, and the responses were along the lines of ‘You’re the Elder and a Maxson, you’re fine.’”

He scowled. “Names?”

Arthur palmed at his face. “Please, do not go berating my team for their approach to teenage angst.”

Boswel’s brows furrowed. “There’s a difference between raging hormones and being deeply troubled, and f*ck whoever made you think otherwise.” He paused. “Was it someone who came with you, or stayed in the Capital?” 

“I’m not telling you that information, for fear of their life.”

“It’s a very reasonable fear, to be blunt.” Boswel nodded, “But seriously. I can promise that most of your own ideas about mental health are screwy. Armies don’t take such things the way they should, so your learnings are bound to be wildly inaccurate and completely devoid of compassion for yourself.”

Arthur leaned back in his chair. “If you’re such the expert, what do I do then?”   
  
“For this situation, or in general?”

He paused. “How about what’s immediately relevant.”

“Pretend you aren’t the Elder of the Brotherhood.” Boswel said, like the insane person Arthur always suspected him to be.

Since he was an a**, he brought out the slow clap. “Wow, I’m cured.”

“No, I’m serious.” Boswel said gingerly, arms crossed atop the table. “If the issue is you can’t enjoy yourself out of rank expectations, just ignore the rank. You’re off-duty right now. Your boss can’t complain about what you do off the clock.”

The word ‘clock’ clicked some switch in his head. 

Arthur sat up straight, turning to check the tiny, glowing clock on the stove.

Preston had been gone for almost three hours?

As if he was telepathic, Boswel chuckled. “Yeah, he’ll be lucky if it doesn’t take five. This place is, very genuinely, insane.”

Arthur blinked. “And you haven’t fixed that issue because…?”

“The mayor hates my guts, and my ADHD-a** cannot handle the ten days of paperwork that fixing the stupid policies will take.”

“Okay, fair, but can’t you just get-”

The front door slammed against the wall, both men at the table jumping from their seats. Arthur's heart shot into overdrive, pumping a mile a minute.

"By the grace of God, I'm home!" Preston called roughly from the entry hall. 

Arthur deflated, the shakiness of adrenaline still rattling through him. Boswel exhaled, sinking into a crouch on the floor, hands clasped as he muttered something that sounded too crude for such a religious man.

Marching into the kitchen, Preston cradled a coffee pot to his chest, disheveled and twitchy in the eye. "Arthur, you will not believe the cra-" He stopped mid-step, eyebrows shooting into his hairline. "Sh*t, hey Jess!" Preston held up the brewer. "Got a replacement for you- wait, how long have you been here?  _ Did something else get shot?!" _

Boswel rubbed at his temples, stilling reeling from the sudden scare. He didn't look up from the floor. "Surprisingly, no." 

Arthur reached over, pulling Preston into a brief half-hug, minding the sensitive cargo. "You were out for a while. Thought I’d have to come rescue you." He teased.

Preston marched to the counter, plugging in the coffee pot like it wronged him. "These motherfu-  _ crazy people _ , made me run around back and forth getting permits for a coffee lot." He hissed, pointing out the window at the general town. "You need a permit to buy, a permit to have permits, a permit to purchase appliances, a permit to purchase anything that can be used to make 'addictive substances', and I had to get each permit five times."

Boswel stood to his feet as he sucked in a breath through his teeth. 

Arthur frowned. "Why? What happened?"

"Because the paperwork proving that we’re staying  _ here  _ goes against previous paperwork that I live  _ somewhere else, _ so clearly I _ 'm a god d*mn terrorist _ **_!"_ ** He shouted, waving his hands in wild gestures, probably bringing every guard to the manor, and certainly making himself look like a maniac.

"I'm sure that calling yourself a criminal won't bring more paperwork upon you.”

"Sass me again and I swear I'll kiss you."

Sighing, Arthur reclaimed his seat at the table. "Well, glad to have you back and not in jail."

"What did I just say about sassing me?" Preston shot back, fiddling with the pot as he got it in working order. Technology and all that, lots of buttons and dials to deal with. He glanced over at the table, and Boswel's forgotten bags that had been steaming. "Jesse, what'd you bring?"

"Ah, sh*t!" Boswel jumped as he remembered those boxes he’d unloaded all those hours ago. He pushed them across the table towards them. “I thought I’d drop off muffins as a late house-warming gift, but you failed to show for...mmm..about the same amount of time it takes to birth a human child.”

"Wow. I make the perilous journey to get a coffee maker and I come home to both of you sassing me." Preston turned back to the coffee pot in mock-hurt, pressing a hand to his chest dramatically. 

"Yeah, but did you bring muffins?" Arthur asked teasingly just to be an a**, barely containing his chuckling as he fetched one of the pastries from a box. He wasn't a man for sweets, but the nauseousness that plagued him since they got there kept him forgetful of feeding himself. Boswel giggled, far more blatant in his gremlin mischievousness then he. 

Preston sputtered, gesturing wildly at the both of them with spread arms and upturned brows. "Sass! Nothing but sass in this town!" He turned sharply, huffing as he flicked a switch on the side of the pot, the small screen playing a sequence of words too far for Arthur to make out.

Whatever it was, Preston froze. He clenched his eyes shut, face blank otherwise. 

"Preston?" Arthur raised an eyebrow, cheek full of muffin.

"It's broken." Came the hollow, breathless choke. 

Boswel dropped to the floor, his wheeze drowning out Preston's agonized, wailing curses. 

**Author's Note:**

> Jack Powel is from the movie Jack, where it's basically a dude that looks 40, but is actually like 10, in reference to the fact that Bethany Esda doesnt know what 20 year olds look like. 
> 
> second chapter is gonna be Maxson and Jess talking about the former. Just some adoptive-dad and son's boyfriend bonding. 
> 
> Translation:  
> Onaanvaardbaar - Unacceptable/ Dutch  
> Υιός - Son, sonny/ Greek  
> if you want to know more abt jess/why he speaks two languages as his first langauge, check out my fic 'but sentimental boy is my nom de plume', it goes into his backstory but its mostly him being bi af for danse


End file.
